Damon Wilson is a lacrosse goalie coach. He learned to play goalie from scratch and now he shares everything he’s learned along the way at Lax Goalie Rat. His coaching benefits from the fact that he didn’t grow up being a lacrosse goalie. In Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, they talk about something called The Curse of Knowledge. This is the “curse” people have that makes it hard for them to teach something they know to a person who knows nothing about it. It can be tough to gauge and hard to assume how much your student already knows. Since there were some areas of goalie that were new to him, as he did the research, it was easier to translate into something young goalies can understand.

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Cringe moments

Trying to do at all myself. Should have sought out more assistant coaches to help

Focusing too much on game skills, and not teaching leadership and mental toughness skills

Being coached by your dad

The key was he had passion for the sport. He wasn’t an expert in soccer, but his passion made the experience great.

Teaching Skills

Make everything competitive – Keep track of stats and quantify the results in practice, then use those numbers to motivate improvement

Mental toughness

Train on controlling your emotions. You have to practice choosing a positive reaction to negative things happening.

Post-goal routine for a goalie: Lift up his mask to show a stoic expression. Review the play in your head for a couple of seconds. Then have an anchor word: quickness; strong; etc. to repeat in your head and move on to a positive mindset.

Leadership

Connecting with and impacting kids

Damon’s goalie on the youth team he coached – was thrown in there b/c no one else volunteered. He developed from a nervous scared kid into a confident leader

The one that got away

On a trip from California to Michigan (in college) – the field house they played in had white walls and a white roof. Damon could not pick up the white ball against that background and they lost 18-4, and Damon got pulled. Damon learned how important it is to be able to recover when something doesn’t go your way.